SALON

Tuesday, Mar 19, 2013 12:45 AM UTC

Amid tensions, Chinese fruit a turnoff in Vietnam

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Amid tensions, Chinese fruit a turnoff in VietnamIn this photo taken on 14th March 2013, a corner inside the “No China Shop”, which sells only goods made in Vietnam _ children's clothes, shoes and vegetables _ and offers to source others. The shop was opened in Demcember 2013 by Paulo Thanh Nguyen in Hochiminh city, Vietnam. His decision to launch the business was as much about harnessing and spreading anger against China as it was about making money. (AP Photo/Na Son Nguyen).(Credit: Na Son Nguyen)

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Jack Nguyen had sold 20 of his 30 containers of imported American grapes when fresh rumors hit the Internet and state-run media: Chinese fruit on sale in Vietnam might look good, but it contains deadly levels of preservatives and pesticides. Shoppers quickly stopped buying imported fruit altogether, believing it all tainted or falsely labeled. The last 10 containers rotted.

While fears about the safety of Chinese food products are often well founded, in Vietnam they are so tangled up with anti-Chinese sentiment it is hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. More than 1,000 years of occupation, a bloody border war in 1979 and renewed assertiveness by China in pushing territorial claims in the South China Sea mean that tales of Chinese perfidy find fertile soil in which to grow.

Vietnam’s authoritarian government tries to stop direct criticism of China, or discussion of its relationship with Beijing, because it is vulnerable to charges by nationalists and democracy activists that it lacks the guts to stand up to its fellow Communist country. As a result, anger at its giant northern neighbor China is increasingly showing up in consumer behavior.

Nguyen says sales at his firm, one of the largest fruit importers in the country, were down to $6 million last year from $11 million in 2011. While he and others in the trade say Vietnam’s economic slowdown is partly to blame, he complains the constant media reports of toxic fruit are strangling businesses, even for those like him who no longer import from China.

“It’s all about how they can sell more newspapers. Nowadays if you write an article about Chinese products, you immediately get millions of hits online,” he said by phone from Australia, where he was buying up part of that country’s grape harvest. “We lost a lot of money just because someone was writing something fancy.”

Chinese companies selling computer games and Internet chat programs have faced online boycotts from anti-China activists. In December, Paulo Thanh Nguyen launched a website called “No China Shop”, which sells only goods made in Vietnam — children’s clothes, shoes and vegetables — and offers to source others. He says sales are good, but his decision to launch the business was as much about harnessing and spreading anger against China as it was about making money.

“Chinese made products are killing Vietnam’s economy and Vietnam could become China’s economic slave,” he said. “I want to lend a hand in preventing this.”

Territorial tensions have been finding their way into other markets in the region.

An ugly spat between China and Japan over contested islands late last year led to a drop in demand for Japanese cars, makeup and consumer electronic devices by Chinese consumers. Nervous Japanese investors are not pulling back on China, but are stepping up investments elsewhere in Asia as a way of hedging against more turbulence.

A restaurant in Beijing recently put up a sign saying that Vietnamese, Japanese and Filipinos — whose government also opposes the Chinese claims — and dogs were not welcome. The owner, who gave a single name of Wang, said he put it up to “release my anger” over the island dispute but took it down after fielding so many calls from reporters.

Given China’s size, few countries in the region could contemplate locking economic horns with it for long. It remains Vietnam’s largest trading partner, and that will not change anytime soon, regardless of the bad press its fruits get.

Business between the two countries has increased since they normalized relations in 1991 following a frontier war. Trade between the two reached $35.7 billion last year, more than triple the figure back in 2006, according to government figures. Cheap Chinese goods dominate markets. Many of its factories that make goods for exports must first import raw materials from China.

Fruit and vegetable imports from China are especially vulnerable to consumer backlash because of that country’s well-documented instances of food tampering, overuse of pesticides and lax regulations on everything from baby milk, dried fruit to meat products. Moreover, Vietnam’s recently minted middle class, like their brethren elsewhere, are increasingly concerned about the provenance and quality of what they put on their plates in general.

China has emerged as one of the world’s leading exporters of fruit and vegetables, and is increasingly taking market share from U.S. producers in Asian markets. It grows more apples than any other country. There are no figures on how much of the crop Vietnam imports. Chinese fruit is often cheaper than Vietnamese, and offers more variety.

Nguyen Quang Bach, a customs official at Tan Thanh, one of the major entry points for Chinese goods into Vietnam, said last year daily imports peaked at 2,100 metric tons of fruit a day in the run up to the Lunar New Year, when demand for fruits is at its highest. He said this year the busiest day saw half that cross the border.

“The information (about alleged dangers) has affected people’s psychology,” he said. “Consumers don’t eat Chinese fruits and importers can’t sell them.”

The media stories on Chinese food scares are laced with rumor and statistics as alarming as they are dubious. The Pioneer, one of the country’s largest circulation papers, repeated rumors about leeches in milk and watermelons imported from China. It went on to report on the case of a woman from northern Vietnam who was admitted into a hospital after suffering from stomach ache. The doctor apparently fainted when he saw the leeches squirming inside her stomach.

Hoang Trung, a deputy director at the agriculture ministry, said tests found excessive levels of pesticide in four samples of Chinese grapes, apricots and pomegranate in the first 8 months of last year. Since then, random tests at border checkpoints and on Chinese and Vietnamese fruits at major fruits markets came out clean.

“There are no grounds for the people to panic,” he said.

Few people seem to be listening, a reflection perhaps of a lack of trust in Vietnamese government authorities.

At Hanoi’s Long Bien market on the banks of the city’s Red River, traders selling Vietnamese fruits occupy one half, with those hawking imports on the other. Around half of the produce at the market are trucked in from China, arriving in the city in the middle of the night. They disparage each other’s products, but there doesn’t appear to be any resentment.

“The Chinese are wicked, and their goods should be banned,” said Xuan, who was sitting in front a stall selling tiny oranges from Southern Vietnam. “They are dangerous.”

Those selling Chinese fruits note people are still buying the fruit, albeit in smaller quantities. They suggested Vietnamese food was as likely to be as toxic as Chinese, and dismissed the stories of dangerous fruit as unfounded rumors.

One suggested that the campaign was being orchestrated by the Vietnamese fruit producers as a form of protectionism. Nguyen, the fruit importer, said that didn’t make sense because the whole industry was suffering as a result.

“If people truly boycott Chinese food, what else can they buy?” said Dung, who along with his wife was selling tiny Chinese, green apples, which he first told a reporter were from central Vietnam. “In reality, local fruit can’t meet demand.”

More By Chris Brummitt.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
3106 points3107 points | 2607 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
1088 points1089 points | 585 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
150 points151 points | 61 comments
vote
New campaign compares gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination
32 points33 points | 11 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
31 points32 points | 15 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations